Mobile communication equipment, e.g., cellular telephones, mobile modems, and the like, provide communication services to end-users by interacting with a communication network via a radio link to a network access node. Depending on the protocol or standard used for the radio link, the mobile communication equipment may be referred to as a mobile device, mobile terminal, mobile station, or as user equipment (“UE”). For example, the standards for Global System for Mobile Communications (“GSM”) usually refer to the mobile communication equipment as the “mobile station,” whereas the standards for Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (“UMTS”) usually refer to the mobile communication equipment as the “user equipment.” This disclosure uses the term “user equipment” (or “UE” for short) to refer to all forms of mobile communication equipment, including devices traditionally referred to by the term “user equipment,” as well as mobile communication equipment traditionally referred to by other terms.
Generally, a communication network will service an area divided into multiple regions or “cells,” each serviced by distinct antennas and base stations. As a UE moves through the service area, it may travel from one cell to another and thus need to be serviced by different base stations. If the UEs in a service area are spread out relatively evenly, the load on the base stations will also be spread relatively evenly. However, in practice, UEs tend to present within a service area in uneven clusters or “lumps,” with a large number of UEs in use near some base stations and fewer UEs in use near other base stations. These lumps generally move over the course of a day, requiring portions of the network to be provisioned to handle the large potential number of UEs even when not present. As a result, this “lumpiness” requires carriers to provision terrestrial base stations to accommodate the maximum expected utilization at all times, even when utilization is low. However, this only works where the necessary resources are readily available.